Living with Right-Wing Hate

May 8, 2014 By Ebony Brown

The JT’s April 25 editorial, “Rethinking right-wing extremism,” was enlightening and spot-on in highlighting the fact that “since 9/11, right-wing extremists have killed more people in this country than ‘extremists motivated by al-Qaeda’s ideology.’” Of course, you would never know that to be the case from listening to Robert Goldberg’s beloved Fox News (Your Say, April 18). Quite the reverse. For example, most recently Fox programming rallied behind racist tax cheat Cliven Bundy, whom it championed as a poster boy for states’ rights.

The JT editorial referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center, characterized by the Forward as “the country’s most prominent legal and investigative organization targeting hate groups.” As reported in a Washington Post column by Dana Milbank, according to the SPLC, “Bundy’s sentiments align closely with the Posse Comitatus movement … who based its anti-tax position on a belief that the levers of national power were controlled by Jewish bankers.”

The local angle in all of this is that the SPLC was a particular bête noire of WBAL’s late anti-tax “rav,” Ron Smith, who, among other antics, would go out of his way to belittle SPLC founder Morris Dees Jr. for the latter’s “Jewish” middle name, Seligman. Dees is a Southern Christian. Smith accused Dees of exploiting his middle name in fundraising efforts in order to mislead possible Jewish donors that he was himself Jewish.